


If I Only Had the Nerve

by Highly_Illogical



Series: The Age That Should Have Been [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Children, Court Sorcerer Merlin, Cute, Gen, Insecurity, Magic, Post-Magic Reveal, Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:40:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Highly_Illogical/pseuds/Highly_Illogical
Summary: AU. Merlin's magic is out in the open and he has no idea what to do with his pompous new title. But when someone knocks on his door with a very special request, he really can't say no.





	If I Only Had the Nerve

**Author's Note:**

> _Yeh, it's sad, believe me, Missy_   
>  _When you're born to be a sissy_   
>  _Without the vim and verve_
> 
> _But I could show my prowess_   
>  _Be a lion, not a mouse_   
>  _If I only had the nerve_
> 
> Yes, the title is a shameless reference to _The Wizard of Oz_ , for reasons that will become obvious.

Merlin flops onto his bed and his stomach swoops with the sinking sensation. He's completely misjudged its softness, _again_ ; somehow, he can't get his stupid, clumsy limbs to remember that he's not living in the tiny room in the back of Gaius's chambers anymore, and that the thing he's sleeping on is not the thin, lumpy mess of his servant days. For some reason, no matter how many nights he spends in this ridiculous cocoon of luxury, it doesn't feel like his bed yet.

There's a tiny, nagging part of him telling him that surely, surely this isn't possible, that it's some sort of sick joke and someone will knock on the door to his new quarters any minute to take it all away, or that it's a wild fever dream and he'll wake up on the cot Gaius usually reserves for his patients, sticky with sweat and delirious with some terrible illness.

He smothers a sound into his pillow that reminds him of a caged animal frustrated with its confinement, and suddenly he can't bear to lie down anymore, no matter that he's just come back from a long walk and his feet are welcoming the reprieve.

Jittery with his need to move and bereft of an actual destination, he takes to pacing around the room, surveying it, as if that helped to get used to it in the slightest. Not unlike the outrageous, much too downy thing he has for a bed, the rest of the place is a far cry from the cramped but welcome familiarity of the bedroom he has left behind. It's big, for one thing: not as large as Arthur and Gwen's royal chambers, of course, and not the size of the room he used to inhabit as Crown Prince either, but he hasn't made the mistake of estimating how many times his old one could fit in here and he frankly doesn't care to try.

It's all decorated in lush shades of Pendragon red (because what else can you expect in this castle?), and if you don't look too closely, it could be anyone's room. He hasn't yet stayed in it long enough to make it feel truly lived in, and his few knick-knacks from before seem dreadfully small with all the extra space to arrange them, giving it a sad, bare look that he hasn't had the heart to improve on. He'd have to collect items for a lifetime to give it the impression of perennial clutter that those same few things created in his tiny living space before.

But the signs are there—the signs that the owner of the room is, in fact, the _Court Sorcerer_. There's an odd sense of disconnect whenever he thinks of his shiny new title, almost as though it belonged to someone else and the legitimate claimant were about to stride in, confident and fearsome-looking and essentially everything he's not, and oust him from the too-rich chamber, telling him in no uncertain terms to go back to mucking out the stables, where he belongs, and stop trying to play with the big boys.

His Sidhe staff, memento of the confrontation with Sophia and Aulfric so long ago and a frantic dive into the Lake of Avalon that doesn't bear thinking about – _please don't let it be too late, please don't let me have failed, have to get to him, can't breathe, please_ – is mounted on the wall like the ubiquitous swords that are there for decoration as much as protection, always close at hand, and his book of magic is sitting on a stand for easy consultation, looking very pleased with itself now that it doesn't have to suffer collecting dust under a floorboard. Which is utterly ridiculous, because it's not as though the thing's _alive_. He's never known of something without eyes being capable of staring at him, but that's exactly what it feels like.

_I'm happy_ , says the cheeky little thing. _I love being out here in the sunlight. It's where I belong. Why aren't you happy too? Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this great? Come and read me, I miss you!_

But he can't. He's deposited it in its new spot and hasn't touched it since, because that would make it official, and he isn't at all sure he's come to terms with this whole Court Sorcerer business just yet.

He catches sight of himself in the mirror and his shoulders sag. He doesn't even _look_ the part, gangly little thing that he is, forever refusing to grow out of the awkward shapes of a young boy. Maybe he ought to grow a beard: that might help take himself seriously and not burst into a half-giggle, half-sob whenever he dons his new robes and tries to convince himself that he doesn't look like a silly child playing with his father's overlarge clothes. When people think of a powerful sorcerer, they don't have this in mind.

It certainly doesn't help that he's just come back from the lower town and he's chosen to dress as he did before, ratty old neckerchief and all, his skin already protesting the scratchy sensation of the coarser fabric despite having left it not too long ago, because it's bad enough when he tries to blend in, let alone when he doesn't. He's glad, now, that he hasn't burned his meager wardrobe in favor of the new one like Arthur suggested, because dressing like one of them, like the common folk and not like someone with magic and a title besides, bought him at least a few moments of anonymity, the strangely welcome annoyance of having to pick his way through the crushing crowds of market day instead of having them part before him like he's something different, something that makes mothers hold their children's hands a little tighter as he goes by.

But there's always that one person, that one moment when someone’s eyes land on his face and he can see them making the connection and scrambling out of his way in a show of respect he has yet to earn mingled with unmistakable fear he wishes he hadn't, and suddenly everyone else is tripping over their feet to let him pass, and he wants to _scream_ , he wants to grab them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them, remind them that nothing has changed, that he's still the same person he was before Arthur's latest decree rocked his world, the clumsy serving boy with hay in strange places from toiling away in the stables, and the fact that he has magic doesn't mean he's going to bring down a curse upon their families if they so much as bump shoulders on the street. (Technically, he could, but he spends most of his waking hours actively trying not to think about it, because there's quite enough in this new life to turn his stomach.)

Why he thought some fresh air might clear his head is completely beyond him. He's only made things worse, reminded himself that the same kitchen maids he used to gossip with are now treating him more like the carrier of some highly contagious sickness than like a member of the court. Lifting the ban on magic wasn't just about Arthur arguing in circles with the council until the last of the resistance caved and then signing a few carefully worded documents for Geoffrey to preserve in his archives, oh, no. That had been the easy part. The real problem was the people. However much power Arthur could wield as king, signing a bit of parchment with a flourish had not erased over two decades of fear overnight. Merlin doubts he could do such a thing himself even with magic, let alone without. There are people in Camelot who were born after the ban was put in place, children and young people who have never known anything else, and those are the worst. The few who have lived to a formidable age like Gaius might remember what it was like before, when magic was a part of life and people hadn't yet forgotten, in the wake of Uther's grief and rage, that for every magical beast intent on wanton destruction, there's a gentle woodland spirit that cares for nothing more than to make flowers bloom and saplings grow into sturdy trees, and for every Morgana, there are uncounted healers who could save as many lives as she has taken and simple farmers who just want to give their crops a little nudge towards a better harvest. But even they have changed, even they don't dare treat him quite the same now that his magic is out in the open. He's no longer just the errand boy who used to bring them Gaius's remedies for the many ailments of their old age. He can't be, because he's the _Court Sorcerer_ , and apparently that makes him another person entirely, a perfect stranger that everyone's got all figured out, except him.

The only one who seems to understand his predicament is Gwen, sweet, loyal Guinevere who reads him like a book before he's opened his mouth, whose only reaction when his last and greatest secret came out was to let out a soft _oh_ , one hand over her mouth and a faraway look in her eyes as if finally putting together a myriad little pieces that stubbornly refused to form a picture, and then smile knowingly and murmur an earnest _thank you_ in his ear with the excuse of a hug, and that was that.

They have a lot in common, both elevated from the dust and sweat of menial work to the shiny, intricate games of courtly politics and etiquette, the exhausting task of getting every step exactly right in a new and complex dance that trips you up at every turn. They both know the impossible contradiction of suddenly having everything you ever wanted and having no idea what to do with it. They're having their fair share of trouble settling in, getting used to the foreign notion of not having to serve, and in the case of Gwen – oops, Queen Guinevere –, of being served instead. (That's where Merlin drew the line: he can dress himself and fetch his own food, thank you very much, and he saw right through Arthur's blatant attempts to foist off George on him and find a slightly less boring replacement for himself. _Not_ going to happen.) He knows for a fact the first night in that thing nobles have the audacity to call a bed was sleepless for both of them, spent tossing and turning in sheer unfamiliarity. But she has a sort of innate grace that Merlin can't hope to achieve in a lifetime: either she was just born to be queen, or she's a lot better than him at pretending. She's still the same person underneath all the layers of luxury, and you can see the relief in her eyes when she can finally let go and just be Gwen, but her queenly act is seamless, and he… most of the time, he doesn't know what to do with himself.

Exactly _what_ is a Court Sorcerer supposed to do? What do people expect? It's not as though he has an abundance of role models to choose from. There might be records of others in the library, from before the Purge, in the history of ancient kings who hadn't feared magic, but he’s barely had the time to realize what happened, scouring one dusty tome after another for traces of them is a luxury he hasn't had. He knows Nimueh was once welcome in Camelot, that Uther himself put the continuation of his line in her hands, but he shudders at the thought of becoming _that_ , scheming in the shadows and playing with people's lives like a boy arranging toy soldiers and knocking them down like they're nothing. He knows Cornelius Sigan helped build Camelot itself, his spells woven in the very stones like gold thread glinting at the edge of Arthur's finery, but all he can learn from him is what not to be—mad with power and disgraced, the king's trust in him in tatters, buried with his accumulated wealth as though he could take it with him after his body was long gone, but so fearful of death that he found a way to cling desperately, unnaturally to this world.

He's going to have to make his own path, and that's more terrifying than a legion of malicious beasts put together.

A knock at his door interrupts that disastrous line of thought, but he knows he's only putting it on hold for a while.

He walks over and swings it open, because even alone, he can't get used to the fact that he's not going to burn if he just lazily waves a hand in its general direction and has it open for him. Besides, you never know who might be on the other side, and even Arthur hasn't completely stopped startling at such casual displays; if the visitor is made of softer stuff, they might run.

His first impression is that there's no one at the door. Just as he's trying to determine if it was a stupid prank or if the mysterious knocker simply changed their mind and scampered (which sounds a lot more likely), a little voice speaks up from well below his eye level.

“Uh, h-hello?” It sounds more like a quivering question than a greeting, and he sees that it comes from a tiny slip of a child who is lugging around a basket that frankly looks bigger than him. He's the kind of little boy whose age is impossible to guess, probably because less than excellent nutrition makes him smaller than he ought to be, not to mention that he's currently trying to make his scruffy little self even smaller than that, fidgeting in place and looking like he dearly wishes to be on the other side of the castle.

Well, he knew his position was bound to come with some strange visitors, but this is a fine way to start. What's he doing here?

“Can I help you?” The boy looks so painfully out of place that he can't help but add: “Are you lost?”

“I'm…” Words fail him, then he swallows and says it all in one hastily drawn breath: “I'mlookingforthecourtsorcerer.”

Merlin blinks, only making out what he said with a moment of delay. “You've found him.”

The boy squeaks, but stands his ground. He half expected him to drop his basket and go as far as his legs would carry him, so that's progress.

He's probably the first of a long line; there aren't many left in Camelot who can do magic, if any at all, and once people realize that it can be used to make their lives easier, he'll be besieged with pleas to heal sick children and ailing livestock where medicine has failed, men who are convinced their bad luck is the result of a curse, and who knows what else. That the advance guard is represented by a child of no more than six summers fills him with hope: if he, who has never known magic as anything other than a threat, is standing in front of him alone, his parents' generation can't be far behind.

But the request doesn't come, and silence stretches awkwardly in the stone corridor. Is the child ill? Merlin can't resist giving him a once-over with a trained physician's eye, silently thanking what he's absorbed from Gaius in all these years, but other than shaking like a leaf and clutching the basket in a white-knuckled grip, he seems outwardly fine.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he encourages him.

“I, uh…” He looks around as if he expects help to come any minute, but no rescue party shows up, and he finally blurts out: “I'm so sorry, they dared me!”

“Dared you?” he echoes, his brows knitting in a frown. Is this what it's come to? Is he to be something to be either avoided or ogled at, the object of foolish dares to see who can get closest to the monster? Surely this isn't what Arthur intended when he elevated him to his new rank, he knows it's patently unfair to blame him, but the situation is well and truly spinning out of control.

Another squeak. “Please don't be angry!”

Oh, great, now he has to convince him he's not about to unleash his unspeakable wrath. “I'm not angry, little one.” He schools his features into what he hopes is a passable smile to make his point.

The boy blows out a breath and visibly deflates with relief, but then another, unexpected expression comes over his face: doubt.

“Are you _sure_ you're him?”

This just keeps getting better and better: another reminder that his current attire is not befitting of his station (the voice of his conscience sounds curiously like Arthur when it says that).

“Pretty sure there's only one of me around.”

“The other boys said you'd be angry and turn me into a toad.”

He tries his hardest not to laugh, just in case he mistakes it for an evil cackle.

“Want to come in?”

The boy cranes his neck to sneak a wide-eyed look at the space behind him, trying to gauge exactly what might be in a sorcerer's room, fear warring with a child's inevitable curiosity.

“Just to make sure I have no toads in there, you know. Honestly, if I turned anyone who knocked on my door into an animal, I'd have a menagerie, and you'd have no king.”

He follows him inside, which is more than Merlin hoped for, but can't quite conceal the look of longing he shoots at the door when it shuts, as if he's only now realized that being alone with him might not be the brightest idea.

“Looks normal,” is the boy’s solemn pronouncement as he puts down his basket and drinks in the sights.

“What did you expect?”

“I dunno. Something different.” The unspoken message is very clear: he expected something different from _him_ , not the room. He's very much not looking at the staff, though; the book doesn't seem to scare him nearly as much, but then, by the looks of him, Merlin is not entirely certain he can read.

“When it comes down to it, I'm just like the rest of you,” he says, hoping fervently that the boy will spread the message. “A bed to sleep in, someplace to put my clothes. No toads whatsoever.”

“They won't believe me. You're too nice.” Funny how words intended as a compliment can cut deeper than a sword. He can just see them, a bunch of rambunctious children kept in line by their parents with stories of scary sorcerers coming to take them away if they don't do their chores like good boys, assuming that a man with magic can't possibly send their playmate away with a pat on the head and not a scratch on him.

“Tell me more about this dare of yours. Why did your friends send you to find me?”

Unexpectedly, the boy sighs deeply. “They're not my friends. I don't have any, ‘cause I'm new here.”

“Oh? You know, I wasn't born in Camelot either, but now I wouldn't trade it for anything. How do you like it here so far?”

“’S nice, but the other boys won't let me play with them.” Sounds like another bad case of trouble settling in. Merlin feels a sudden surge of sympathy.

“And this… this will change their minds?”

“Yeah. I wanted to play knights, but they said I wasn't brave enough, so they dared me to find you.”

Merlin unsuccessfully fights down a grin. ‘Playing knights’ is the most popular pastime with the boys of every social class in Camelot. Ever since the First Code was left in the dust and the kingdom's languishing ranks replenished with anyone from the cadet son of a lord to a lowly farmer, there isn't a single child in town who can't be found charging at imaginary monsters with a wooden sword and a yell of delight, or going with his friends on brave ‘quests’ that end more often than not with a free treat from the baker across the street as the coveted prize.

“Well, now you did.” It's only then that it hits him. “Actually, let me get this straight: you walked halfway across town, past the gates, guards and all, made your way through a castle you’ve probably never visited, to find someone you thought would leave you with a taste for flies, and the other boys think you're not brave?”

“I'm not. I'm afraid of the dark, and of thunderstorms. I bet none of the real knights are afraid of those.”

He smiles sadly. The Knights of Camelot are the standard against which everyone in the kingdom measures his strength and bravery, and it's a high enough standard to leave many a fully grown man disappointed, let alone a pint-sized one.

“What's your name?” He thinks he knows a way to cheer him up right quick, but it rather requires knowing, and it only now occurs to him that the boy hasn't introduced himself.

“Alymere.”

“Well, then, _Sir_ Alymere, I know them a bit better than you do, and I bet they were when they were your age.” Alymere doesn't bother to hide the way his tiny chest puffs up in pride, and Merlin adds a point to his mental tally. “And in any case, being brave is not about not being afraid, it's about being afraid of something and doing it anyway. Just like you did now, and see, that wasn't so bad. Maybe you can remember that during the next thunderstorm.”

“This is different.” He hefts the basket demonstratively. “They prob'ly just thought I was delivering something.” _You sneaky little thing…_ “It was easy. Except, you know… this.” He gestures vaguely with one hand to encompass him, the room, probably the fact that they're having a civil conversation and no one's growing webbed feet or croaking yet.

“What have you really got in there?”

He lifts what looked like a load of fresh linens to reveal a collection of a child's small treasures: the toy sword he so longs to swing at his playmates in mock battles, a chunk of bread with tiny tooth marks that speak of a fair bit of nervous nibbling along the way, smooth river pebbles picked up just because they're pretty, and—his chest constricts painfully and he finds himself choking back traitorous tears. The boy's got a wooden figurine of a dragon, rather skilfully carved for all his untrained eye can see, and his heart bleeds to think of its twin secreted away in his cabinet, a memory of a too-short reunion, a taste of the childhood that could have been.

“Did you think you were going to have to fight me?” he asks, forcing his attention away from one toy and onto another, safer one for the time being. He doesn't have the heart to tell him he has ways to protect himself from the business end of a real sword, let alone a blunt imitation that can give no more than a nasty bump.

“Uh… maybe? I'm good, I promise! I'm going to do it for real when I grow up!” _Can't really expect him to say differently at this age…_ Before they understand that it's not all adventure and eternal glory, all children want to grow up to be knights.

“Oh, I don't doubt that for a second. Your father must be proud of you.”

Alymere nods his head frantically. “I'm going to be the first knight in the family. Daddy's a woodcarver.”

He says it like a challenge, as if daring him to say it's impossible, that a woodcarver's son will never serve as a knight, and only a few years ago, he might have. But a few years ago was another age, another king, and right now this boy, this little ball of nervous energy who has a big grin with a missing front tooth and even bigger dreams, standing more or less fearlessly in a sorcerer's room and proclaiming with all the surety in the world that he's going to be a knight, is the embodiment of the future, and his hope is so bright it's blinding to look at. Who is he to snuff it out like a mere candle?

“Did he make that?” he asks, irrationally proud of himself for not letting his voice break as he points at the toy dragon.

“Yeah, he did.”

“Why a dragon, of all things?”

The boy points at the inevitable Pendragon crest mounted on the wall, gleaming gold and proud on its shield, as if that explained everything, which in a way, it does. Merlin hasn't personally checked, but he's convinced there's at least one in every room, and it's finally coming in handy.

“I see.”

For the second time today, he feels an inanimate object staring at him as if it were alive: his own figurine is probably trying to breathe imaginary fire at the cabinet door to join its companion, and what if this is the solution after all? What if he can let the child walk out of here knowing he has something in common with the infamous sorcerer, that if even he has a toy dragon, maybe that means he's human?

_Worth a try_. Gods, but it hurts. Now that he has all the nooks and crannies he wants, he prefers to keep it where he knows it's there, but his eyes cannot return to it unless he consciously decides it. Better to focus on the future that can be than on the thousand pasts that never were.

“You know, I have one just like it.”

“Really?”

“Would you like to see it?”

Alymere nods, and there's another moment of internal debate, another frantic weighing of his own small comfort versus the very real possibility that the miniature knight might still bolt, before Merlin decides it isn't worth destroying the tentative trust he's been building just to summon a toy and does it by hand. Perhaps it's silly, but he can’t shake the feeling that his father must approve of what he's doing, wherever he is.

The wooden dragons are similar in size, and the boy admires the way they sit side by side on their palms, his own somehow looking quite a bit bigger in his small hand, before shifting his grip and hitting Merlin's with a clunk in a gesture that's probably meant to resemble his dragon snapping with its jaws at the rival.

“Ah, he's fierce.” He hits back only half-heartedly, readily conceding defeat.

“Yeah, but yours is prettier,” he says sadly, as if it pained him to admit that his father might not be the best woodcarver in the Five Kingdoms. “Did you make it with magic?”

Drunk with hope from the simple question, asked with a child's unfiltered innocence and not a single tremble in his voice, he explains hoarsely: “No. Someone else made it for me. Someone who… knew dragons very well.” Before the memory of his painfully short time with Balinor shatters the moment, he adds, more cheerfully than he feels: “I know a better way to play with dragons, if you want.”

Alymere seems to study him before handing over his toy, possibly sensing that it involves magic and that what he's doing is several orders of magnitude worse than accepting treats from a stranger.

Ignoring the boy's instinctual flinch at the flash of gold in his eyes, he whispers words of power to their finely carved wings and snouts and tails, and they both take flight from the twin perches of his hands, circling and diving at each other in the air. It's not true life, merely a spark, a pale imitation that makes stiff wood pliant enough to mimic sinous reptilian bodies hurtling through the skies on powerful leather wings, and Alymere stares, not wanting to admit his delight and failing miserably.

“Whoa. That's… that's…”

“That, _Sir_ Alymere, is a story you can tell your friends.”

“Yeah, there's no way I can make _that_ up.”

He watches the aerial acrobatics for a little while longer, grinning when his toy circles his head as if showing off to its owner, and then does a curious display of opening his mouth and closing it as if swallowing his own words, shifting from foot to foot in sudden, palpable discomfort.

“What is it?”

“Can… can they breathe fire too?”

“Oh, why not?”

Another flash, and the figurines send up twin plumes of flame that flare brightly before dissipating in the air. They're barely more than sparks, quite proportionate to their diminutive size and not even hot enough to blacken the wood of their little mouths, but Alymere’s jaw drops.

He watches the dragons come to roost on his beckoning hands and go back to their original poses as though they'd never left and says in poorly disguised awe: “You really can do _anything_.”

“Well, maybe not quite anything,” he counters hurriedly, before Alymere gets strange ideas in his head and his tale gets blown way out of proportion in its thousand retellings.

Alymere snatches back his toy and turns it every which way, poking and prodding it as if he could coax it back into flight, and then proclaims in all seriousness: “I bet you could make me as brave as a real knight. You could make me not be scared of anything. They'd like me better that way.”

Merlin's insides twist into knots. It's one thing to cater to a harmless whim, but this… he doesn't know what he's saying, this is so much bigger than a tiny jet of fire. Even magic has its limits, and he's seen the way it hits a wall where feelings are concerned, the way it fabricates an empty parody of love without a care in the world for consequences. A spell to induce utter fearlessness… it's within his reach, but it's not happening on his watch, much less on a child. He supposes it should fill him with hope that a boy who only minutes ago stood trembling on his doorstep in fear of him is now trusting him enough to contemplate the possibility of magic being used on him, his innocent little mind changed by a pretty show: that's more than he can say of most adults. But his instinct screams _wrong_ , and he intends to follow it.

He has sworn since Morgana's last takeover that magic to affect another's mind is much too close to a dark path he has no wish to walk, and that it's an absolute last resort. He'd tried to find humor in Arthur's wildly out of character behavior then, when only magic could induce him to choose to retreat and live rather than stay and die, but it had only been a hollow sort of amusement, frayed at the edges with the tension of those terrible hours, like something he might have found funny in another lifetime. It had made his stomach churn, confronted with an aspect of his power he'd simply refused to see—that a few simple words could reduce a mighty warrior to a pliant, mindlessly obedient shell of himself that he could direct like a puppet on strings.

No. Never again, if he can help it.

“That would be a very, _very_ bad idea, Alymere. Nobody likes being scared, but the thing is that fear is actually useful. If you truly were afraid of nothing, it wouldn't just be about not being scared of darkness and storms, it would be much worse than that. You might go into the forest and get lost, and a wild animal could get you because you didn't know to run and hide. You might follow a strange man because you couldn't tell he was up to no good, and who knows what would happen then. Taking fear away completely is not the answer, because as much as you hate it, it's part of what keeps you safe. I was scared too, lots of times, and between you and me, that's why I'm still alive.”

“Maybe not completely, then. Maybe just a little bit.”

Merlin looks at him, and he sees _belief_. After what he's seen, he could probably tell the boy that the sky is green and he would agree wholeheartedly. Maybe he doesn't need to flirt with darkness after all.

“You know what? Just a little bit, and only because you asked so nicely.”

And now to make it sufficiently dramatic. Alymere likely knows nothing of magic and couldn't tell a real spell from a parlor trick if he saw it, and frankly, even if Merlin were careless enough with his powers to go flinging spells left and right and damn the consequences, the little one is quite courageous enough without it.

He stretches out a hand in silent invitation for him to give back his toy dragon and infuses it with a new breath of make-believe life, but it doesn't take flight. Instead, it just turns around and settles on the flat of his palm, its long tail twisting snake-like around its body, watching Alymere with dull wooden eyes that look nothing like a dragon's fathomless orbs.

“Dragons have some powerful magic of their own, you know,” he explains. “And sometimes, if you trust them, they can help you do things you'd never do otherwise. Do you trust your little dragon here?”

“Yeah.”

“And I think we can both agree that there isn't much in this world that can scare a dragon, right?”

“Right, so?”

“So…” he pauses, pretending to hear a sound that wasn't there, and brings the animated toy up to his ear as if listening to a nonexistent whisper. “What was that? You want to help?”

Alymere’s eyes look about ready to pop out of his head. “You can talk to dragons?”

“Oh, yes. They even have interesting things to say most of the time, when they make sense, that is.” Funny how that's not even a lie. “And our friend here is saying you've been taking very good care of him since your father freed him from his block of wood, and he wants to give you a gift.”

“Whoa. How's that work? What do I do?”

“Come closer.”

He can see puzzlement and giddiness cycling on his face, but eventually, Alymere comes so close he can feel his breath on his fingers, screwing his eyes tightly shut without prompting.

The toy's wooden chest swells as if heaving in a great breath, and with a little prodding on Merlin's part (but with his eyes closed, the boy will never know the dragon had nothing to do with it), it blows a soft, warm breeze that ruffles Alymere’s nest of hair even further.

“It's done.”

Once again, Alymere watches his figurine go back to its natural state, but this time, he looks disappointed.

“That was it? I don't feel any different.”

“Oh, but you are. Very different indeed. I can see it already. Your dragon gave you a little of his courage, and the next time you're afraid, you can just give it a good, tight squeeze and you'll feel better.”

He's certainly not about to tell him there wasn't a lick of magic in what just happened besides what little was required to stir the air in the room.

 

Years later, when Sir Alymere embarks on his first quest, the toy may or may not still be in his satchel, but don't tell his squire, or he'll never live it down.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, Sir Alymere is an existing minor character in Arthurian mythology, but very little is known about him, and frankly, he might as well be an OC in this context. It was the closest tag I had.
> 
> I wanted to be ambitious and choose someone more famous, but that led to unnecessary complications.
> 
> I have plans for more short stories consistent with this AU, which will then be added to the series. Posting order will not match chronological order.  
> I simply don't have it in me to commit to a great, cohesive AU epic, I prefer separate but interconnected one-shots.


End file.
